Around 60% of the world’s population lives in cities and urban areas. This is where 70% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated. We can make the biggest contribution to climate protection in urban centres, which is why we, the BMW Group, are getting involved here. We are part of society and are therefore responsible for the sustainable development of our planet. We are aware that a transformation towards increased sustainable mobility is a process that we can only actively shape by collaborating with all the people whom it affects. That’s why we have been working on innovative mobility concepts together with municipalities, companies, politicians and scientists for almost 30 years.
We are involved in a multitude of initiatives that promote electromobility, make traffic safer and transport more efficient, and which rethink connectivity – always with the aim of improving the quality of life in cities and urban areas.
Understanding various mobility requirements and developing needs-appropriate solutions.
For millions of commuters, our vehicles remain a part of everyday life that they cannot do without. So what can we do to change people’s behaviour and encourage them to use alternative transport for the last mile or avoid contributing to rush hour traffic? This is why we are working with urban administration, universities and cross-sectoral partners in order to understand mobility needs, identify potential and use this knowledge to find solutions. The aim is to show cities a future in which the mobility needs of their inhabitants are met while achieving sustainability goals.
Infrastructure is a crucial success factor.
"The point at which we achieve market penetration with electromobility is dependent on how fast the charging infrastructure is expanded. We have been committed to this aim for some time now: across the world, we have now installed more than 15,000 charging stations. We cannot allow the charging infrastructure to become the limiting factor that decides whether customers buy electric vehicles or not.”
Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG
A transformation towards electromobility requires an attractive electric ecosystem.
We are dedicated to accelerating the introduction of electromobility by considering the electric ecosystem as a whole and thereby making electromobility more attractive. This means we will be able to reduce the CO2 footprint of traffic and contribute to the sustainability goals of cities and municipalities. We are promoting the improved availability of infrastructure – in other words, public access to charging points, technical requirements and improvement of cost transparency (Charge Now). This also includes economically and ecologically feasible charging through the use of renewable energy, intelligent routing systems based on the location of suitable charging stations, mobility services for B2B customers for efficient fleet management and various mobility offerings for employees with information on their contribution to sustainability.
Intelligent traffic management for more sustainable driving pleasure.
The BMW Group is dedicated to making city traffic safer and more efficient. Together with cities, universities and other companies, we are analysing how the awareness of drivers can be increased in danger zones through time- and location-based messages with the help of traffic, vehicle and infrastructure data. Our solutions for increased spatial efficiency include narrow vehicle concepts, increasing vehicle occupancy (carpooling) and efficient road use in the public sphere (shared services). Our contribution to a better flow of traffic and thereby a reduction in CO2 emissions, traffic jams and pollution are intelligent routing services, which prevent the traffic generated by those searching for a parking space, multimodal transport options for switching to alternative modes of transport and highly and fully automated driving.
Flagship cities – sustainable mobility for cities worth living in.
The BMW Group has been working on concepts for the future of urban spaces with selected cities for almost 30 years. These include the flagship cities of Los Angeles, Beijing, Rotterdam and Munich. What do these cities have in common? Their growth is leading to increasingly dense residential and traffic areas. This means overloaded infrastructure, traffic jams, air pollution and noise. Every city has its own character.
Together with the city administration and cross-sectoral partners from industry and science, the BMW Group is developing pilot projects to make city traffic safer, more digitally networked and more sustainable. There are differences in how the projects are implemented. The BMW Group is helping to conceptualise individual plans that are oriented towards the prevailing conditions and needs of each city and its inhabitants. Participation in these pilot projects and urban labs allows us to learn and evaluate results. The aim is to implement individual solutions quickly and efficiently and to scale these for other cities and regions with similar conditions.
People with passion.
What do stakeholders at BMW Group tell cities and partners why they are involved, how they are involved, and what specifically is being done.
The BMW Group pools expertise for urban mobility.
Since the 1990s, the BMW Group has been continuously expanding its collaboration with cities and pooling its expertise for urban mobility. This results in new approaches in the areas of the electric ecosystem, traffic management and mobility transformation. We are testing mobility concepts in a scalable framework with various projects so that we can concretely demonstrate impacts and make sound recommendations for feasible, individually tailored mobility solutions (City2Share Munich, Neue Mobilität Berlin, RealLab HH). The transition towards sustainable mobility is a social process involving a large number of stakeholders with different interests and individual needs. If we involve all stakeholders, we can be sure that the measures will also be successful in the long term.
Neue Mobilität Berlin.
A lack of space is one of the big challenges in Berlin. In “Deine Flotte” (Your Fleet) campaigns, residents of one district have been able to “trade in” their car for a limited period for multimodal mobility services, such as car sharing and e-bikes, since 2016.
City2Share.
Until 2021, residents in model districts in Munich and Hamburg were able to see how they could use space freed up by foregoing their private car for children’s and leisure activities while retaining their mobility through electric car and e-bike sharing.
RealLab HH.
The RealLabHH, which the BMW Group was involved with, was awarded the 2022 innovation prize by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Drivers were informed of approaching trains by in-car messages before they reached ungated level crossings, and pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders were warned of dangerous situations through messages on their smartphones.
